Part of the confusion might be stemming from the fact that there are two different kinds of Sapien “mandalas,” which were created slightly differently.
The OG mandalas (from Sapien’s Instagram and a few later ones) were much more forgiving (as were the images on the old dog tags, which we could also call “mandalas,” even though we never did). These mandalas could be cropped. And you’ll find quite a few discussions where forum friends discussed the cropping and resizing of these types of mandalas to please their aesthetic preferences.
Things started to change with the NFT mandalas, which are less forgiving. These mandalas can not be significantly cropped. And we must keep the aspect ratio of the original image when we resize these mandalas.
They’re all “mandalas.” But, in spite of sharing the same label, they operate differently.